Google begins notifying users infected with DNS Changer – As the date set for the final shutdown of the infrastructure that keeps computers infected with the DNSChanger Trojan connected to the Internet is approaching at a fast pace, Google has decided to begin warning affected users that land on its search sites. The warning has already begun appearing to infected users. It comes in different languages.

Zombie Facebook Profiles Thrive: Robot Blondes Invade Social Network – Fake Facebook accounts are flourishing and the social network appears oblivious to the fraud. Want a generic account that Facebook hasn’t verified? They run from 6 to 20 cents apiece. If you want a PVA – a phone verified account for which Facebook has sent a code via text message to a phone, requiring a human to log into Facebook and enter that code — the prices start at $1.50 per account. And it’s not just Facebook; Twitter, G+, AOL, iTunes, Craigslist all have their own markets for faux personae.

Financial fraud drives most targeted attacks – Regardless of motivation, new variants of malware are being generated on a daily basis, often targeting multiple sites and organizations to increase the likelihood of an attack’s initial success and the potential for threats to spread quietly throughout an organization.

5 Steps for Great Action Photos – Summer is upon us, and that means we’ll be spending a lot more time outdoors, capturing photos of stuff–kids, friends, cars, planes, dogs–in action.

A quick Word trick for typing text into a scanned document – Paper forms aren’t obsolete, not by any means. But if you want to use Word to fill them in, you can. A quick and easy trick renders most paper forms into an electronic file. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’ll work in a pinch.

Company News:

Sonetel to Give All Customers iNum Numbers From Voxbone – Voxbone announced today that Sonetel, a Swedish VoIP provider with users in more than 200 countries, has begun giving all of its subscribers free iNum numbers from Voxbone. The agreement to provide iNums expands Sonetel’s relationship with Voxbone, which has provided the certified reseller more than 17,000 geographical phone numbers since 2010.

Are You a Human’s User-Friendly Game-Based Security Solution Aims to Replace Distorted Text CAPTCHAs – Are You a Human, a Detroit-based company that designs simple games used to verify human interaction on websites, today announced its innovative game-based human authentication tool, PlayThru. Designed to replace distorted text CAPTCHAs as a means of human identification, PlayThru is a free, cloud-based solution and is already deployed on the websites of popular business-to-consumer companies such as Quicken Loans and Fathead. PlayThru integrates with multiple CMS platforms such as WordPress, Drupal, PHPBB, and vBulletin, as well as libraries for all popular code formats. The solution can be downloaded for free at www.areyouahuman.com

Google’s Motorola Purchase Complete, Dennis Woodside Named CEO – Google’s $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility is now complete, the search giant and now hardware maker detailed in a May 22 blog post. And while Google has said it will run Motorola as a separate business, that doesn’t mean all will remain as-is.

HP Will Lose PC Crown to Lenovo but Remain a Leader – Hewlett-Packard is likely to lose its title as the world’s top-selling PC maker to Lenovo during the second or third quarter of this year. Still, HP will generate larger profits than Lenovo, and both companies will execute well going forward, according to a May 21 report from Technology Business Research (TBR) analyst Ezra Gottheil, following HP’s Global Influencers Summit in Shanghai earlier this month.

Webopedia Daily:

Vertical Industry Portal – Vortal – Vertical Industry Portal (vortal) is a portal website that provides information and resources for a particular industry. Vortals are the Internet’s way of catering to consumers’ focused-environment preferences. Vortals typically provide news, research and statistics, discussions, newsletters, online tools, and many other services that educate users about a specific industry.

Today’s Quote:

“An opinion should be the result of thought, not a substitute for it.”

– Jef Mallett

Today’s Free Downloads:

SRS Audio Essentials – SRS sound enhancements add bass, depth, spaciousness, and clarity to just about any piece of music or video. These features are included with Windows Media Player, but if you use another player, you need SRS Audio Essentials, which adds WOW and TruBass to any player.

Nvidia Forceware for Windows – This is the first WHQL-certified driver from the R295 family of drivers. It is the recommended upgrade for all GeForce users, especially those playing the latest hot PC games like Battlefield 3, Diablo III, Mass Effect 3, or The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

2 responses to “Tech Thoughts Daily Net News – May 23, 2012”

This looks like a great solution to the Captcha problem. I’ll be suggesting that it’s used on my company’s three websites so thank you very much for the info. Part of my job involves moderating forum comments and site member profiles. Those Captcha’s can be tricky to read especially the more comlpex version designed to beat spambots.

Those pesky human spammers are hard to deal with. Luckily our websites are aimed mostly at UK residents so when a spammer uses an IP address in Russia, India or any other country to register as a site member or post forum spam it’s fairly easy to block their entire IP address range and delete their profile/ comments.

Mostly they just find a way around the block usually via a proxy server and continue spamming. They use several methods including posting html code with anchor links in their member profile or in their signature text. I usually send them a password reset email before deleting their account because otherwise they just don’t seem to realise that they’re wasting their time – and mine!

I just don’t like spammers very much at all. At one point we were getting nearly 500 spam posts per day. Now it’s usually between zero and five per day.

Having just deleted 354 spam comments moments ago, I certainly agree that these pests make the job harder than it needs to be. So yes, any tool that can help control these morons is worth investigating.

Best,

Bill

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